How To Hide Control Panel Items

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On a number of different occasions, people need to hide the control panel items so that anyone who uses the same computer won't be able to make unnecessary changes. It must however be kept in mind that even if the items are not visible, changes to computer settings can be made through different sources. But still, if the subjects from whom you are hiding the icons are non-professional and don't have much technical information, you can successfully achieve your goals. The ideal scenario would be the case of a father hiding "Add and Remove Programs" icon from the control panel so that his children cannot delete any necessary applications.

There are a number of ways in which this effect can be achieved. Let me explain them one by one.

 

1) By using third party applications

 

The easiest way to hide control panel items is using 3rd party tools like "Tweak UI". All you need to do is download this little tool and install it on your computer. After the installation is complete, run the tool. You will see a window as shown below.

On the left hand side, there are different classes of settings and on the right are the values. When you select the "control panel" option in the left, you will see that the right side will show the items of the control panel. Just uncheck the items you want to hide and you are done.

 

2) By changing the group policy

 

In the start menu, click on run. Type "gpedit.msc" and press enter. You will see a window as shown below.

Go to "User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel. You will see a number of different options on the left side. Double click the "Hide Specified Control Panel Applets". A new window will appear where you can edit the options of the command. Enable the command by selecting the "Enabled" radio button. Then click "show" button and add the name of ".cpl" file of the respective control panel item. Click "add" followed by "ok". Apply the settings by clicking "Apply". Confirm by visiting the control panel.

 

3) By Adding a Registry Value

 

In the run utility of start menu, type "regedit". The Registry Editor will open as shown in the image below.

Go to "HKEY_Current_User > Control Panel > Don't load". Right click on the right side of the window and create a new String value. The name of the value must be the same as the ".cpl" file of the respective control panel item. After naming the entry properly, double click on it and enter "No" in the Value Data textfield. Click "OK" and Restart the computer.

 

4) Through Command Prompt

 

This method is actually a duplicate of adding a registry value but in this case, instead of windows explorer, command prompt is used to create new registry values. Open the command prompt by typing "cmd" or "command" followed by enter in the run utility. After the command prompt opens, enter the following line of code and press enter.

reg add "hkcu\control panel\don't load" /v [name of respective .cpl file] /t REG_SZ /d No

The red add command is used to create a new registry value. The next portion of the command tells the system to create the new value in that specific location. Normally we don't wrap the address in quotation marks but when the address contains spaces, they are used. The /v parameter is for value of the new registry entry. It should be the name of the corresponding ".cpl" file (without square brackets). /t parameter is for type and /d is for data.